Tag: Inspirational Thoughts

Could Jeffrey Dahmer be in heaven?

On By Naty MatosIn Inspirational Thoughts4 Comments

Every time someone thinks of Jeffrey Dahmer the first thought is that of a serial killer. He raped, killed and kept the parts of some of his victims. He buried some of them. It was known that he killed around 17 men and boys.

I was looking into my usual crime stories and amazingly enough I had heard the name but didn’t know the story. To my surprised I read not only about the despicable disgusting things he did, but as I kept reading I found out something that it’s not talked about much.

While in jail, after being apprehended while his last potential victim was able to escape and alert authorities, Dahmer did something amazing… He gave his life to Christ.  Yes, my mouth dropped and I couldn’t believe it, he repented and got saved and accepted Jesus as his Lord and savior.  He even got baptized.

The bible says that in Mark 16:16 “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned” and it also says in Isaiah 1:18 “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool”

Dahmer was attacked twice in jail, once coming out of a church service and later on while cleaning floors and that’s when he was killed. I think this is an inspirational story. I believe that in the eyes of God there are no sins bigger than other. A lie and a murder carry both the same weight; maybe not in our eyes, but in God’s eyes.  (1 John 3:4-5 Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness)

If I follow the Word of God then yes, Jeffrey Dahmer could be in heaven. I can’t be certain as only God knew his heart.  We believe in a God that can forgive it all. Isn’t that great? If you have not raped and murder anyone,  guess what? if you repent, what you did can be forgiven. But there’s more, even if you have… if you repent you can be forgiven too. We all can.

I thought that was a deep concept to process and wanted to share. I would love to hear your thoughts.

Blessings!!!

The undesired mission

On By Naty MatosIn Inspirational ThoughtsLeave a comment

The first thing I read this morning was about Moses talking to God about why was he the chosen one to free the Israelites from Egypt. He was not thrilled with God choosing him for this mission. I love the book of Exodus and Moses is one of my favorite characters in the Bible, so I can’t deny feeling for Moses on this one…LOL!

In Exodus 3:10-4:13, you can read the conversation where God tells Moses to do. Moses gives God every reason why he’s not the right person for the job. God basically tells him, I created you therefore I’ll equip you and poor Moses comes back with a whine… Why me? Send someone else…

How many times have we been in that situation? God places in your heart to witness to someone and it happens to be someone you don’t like much. Or he calls you to be part of a ministry but that’s not what you like to do. Better yet, just like the parable of the rich man (Luke 16:19-31) where you are asked to leave it all behind and start from scratch. Can you hear that whiney noise in your head yet?

One of the things that I’ve discovered in my life journey is that everything in our lives has a purpose and it becomes useful at different stages. If we believe in a life with purpose then we would need to admit that our missions are handpicked for us.

As I meditate of why Moses would had been the person for the job; not only he was an Israelite which connected him with God’s people, but he had been raised in the palace with Pharaoh. He knew the ins and outs, how things worked. It’s kind of like being bilingual, you’re the perfect person for the job if it involves being in the middle of things that involved both languages or cultures.

But just like Moses we don’t tend to see how we are perfect for the job and its mostly because we don’t want to do the jobs for whatever reason: fear, feelings of inadequacy, out of our comfort zone, disobedience, etc.

I remember a trying time in my life where God placed people who had gone through some of my trials and worse. I remember saying, “it’s not that I’m happy with your suffering, but I’m glad you understand”. Every test in our life is a testimony in the making and it’s a tool in our belt for the next mission. So with that in mind, how will you respond the next time you are called into action?

Could you imagine what would happen if our armed forces or our law enforcement officers declined their missions? Food for thought soldier of God!

 

 

Blessings!

Worship Friday 5/20/11

On By Naty MatosIn Worship1 Comment

In the last few days, I’ve continued to think about how we forget easily how to translate the love for one another. We tend to think of loving those who we like and be charitable with institutions at the most. I think is lack of sight of who is our “neighbor” the one that Mark 12:31 talks about.

This week I talked about inequality and how we judge people by race, ethnicity, social or economical status. But we forget something very important. We all are equal in the eyes of God. “Rich and poor have this in common:  The LORD is the Maker of them all.” Proverbs 22:2

That’s why I pray that God gives us a glimpse of his eyes and the way he sees us. That’s why I chose this song from Brandon Heath, “Give me your eyes” to worship the Lord today.

Enjoy!

The hair clip from hell!

On By Naty MatosIn Inspirational ThoughtsLeave a comment

Have you ever heard that we are affected by things, people and places? The results can be both negative and positive and sometimes without our conscious acknowledgement. We live our life day by day and our life gets transformed for good or bad and it’s not until we make a pause that we realize how far we’ve gone; either towards our purpose or away from it.

There’s a particular thing that was a symbol in my life for a long time without my conscious knowledge, it was a hair clip. Apparently when I was very angry I would pulled my hair up, others will say that it was very high, and that I placed the hair clip on the top of my head. It was an unconscious thing.

I use to be a manager, and I heard some of my employees pass by my cubicle and announce, “oh oh hair clip is on”. I never paid attention, I thought it was a joke, until one day someone who I was in a relationship with and I were having a phone conversation. It was more an argument. He got quiet and said. “I bet your hair is up” and when I touched my hair, he was right. This same individual had a fist fight with his brother. I was called by a neighbor who couldn’t pulled them apart. I asked to be placed on the phone with my boyfriend and announced that I was on my way. When I made it to his place the guys were in separate rooms, I talked to “my guy” and started asking questions about the fight, he kept staring at me in silence. Finally he said,” I’m not talking to you until your hair comes down” I started laughing and pulled the clip off. This was over five years ago.

Why a hair clip story? During the last five to six years God has been working on me. I’m not sure if I had an anger issue, it was more a legalistic spirit. Everything needed to be in a way (usually my way) and I was miserable. If things were not inside the mold I would not only be upset but angry.  As things started changing in me I started enjoying my life. I laugh more, I have less concerns and I’m way less affected by sudden changes in life.

When I stopped managing my life and surrendering it to the one that could actually do something about it I had less reasons to worry and less need to control. That gave me more time to enjoy life and do more of what I like: writing! I’m not going to say that I never get upset or angry anymore, but the clip went away from my life as I am not nearly as uptight as I used to be.

I laugh when people say how funny or laid back I am. If they only knew me then. But what about the hair clip you may ask? I have not used it in years. I realized this week how long God has brought me when I found it buried in a box.

Would you like to share things that God has changed in your life? Have you identified things, people or places that affect you positively or negatively? I would love to hear them!

Be blessed!!

Inequality

On By Naty MatosIn Articles4 Comments
View of the Statue of Liberty from Liberty Island
Image via Wikipedia

 

“Give me your tired, your poor,
your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
the wretched refuse of your teeming shore,

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me”

(Portion from the poem by Emma Lazarus the New Colossus, which is graven on a tablet within the pedestal on which the Statue of Liberty stands)
                      ~

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Enter, you who are blessed by my Father! Take what’s coming to you in this kingdom. It’s been ready for you since the world’s foundation. And here’s why:

   I was hungry and you fed me,
   I was thirsty and you gave me a drink,
   I was homeless and you gave me a room,
   I was shivering and you gave me clothes,
   I was sick and you stopped to visit,
   I was in prison and you came to me.’

Matthew 25:34-36

Do you see any similarities in the passages before?

 My heart has been grieving for a while hearing “God fearing people” spew so much hatred towards others, just because they are different. I don’t understand why we can’t see each other as people. Instead we keep the barriers of races, socio-economical backgrounds, and gender. Do you really think that God sees us that way? I think that if God wanted us to look all the same and have the same he would have made us all the same.

If we are created in God’s image, there’s something beautiful in each human being that’s inherited from God himself, then why are we the ones separating when God is all about unity?

We complaint about how some people benefit from our labor and are not the best stewards of those benefits; and that may be true. Don’t you believe in a God of justice that will judge those who don’t steward what has been trusted in them? Don’t you believe in a God of provision that will take care of YOUR needs, therefore who cares what your neighbor has?

We are complaining about helping the tired, feeding the hungry, giving room for the homeless, clothing the naked, helping the sick and visiting the prisoner. I stand on the Word of God that says in Matthew 25:45 “He will answer them, ‘I’m telling the solemn truth: Whenever you failed to do one of these things to someone who was being overlooked or ignored, that was me—you failed to do it to me.’

Don’t we want to hear “‘well done, good and faithful servant!” (Matthew 25:23) if we don’t do what is required, instead we will hear that  God placed those people in our lives and directly or indirectly we didn’t do what we were to do and we will be held accountable for it.

Did we forget when we were there? When it was us being the poor, the rejected, the ones in need? By us I don’t necessarily mean us, but maybe our ancestors, and if the hand of God and I’m sure someone else’s help, you and I would not be here. It’s time to embrace the Heaven culture, where our differences just enrich us instead of divide us.

Be blessed.

Best Advice Ever

On By Naty MatosIn Inspirational ThoughtsLeave a comment
~day 17: the Kingdom of God is among you~
Image by theroamincatholic via Flickr

I was working on another article and read this. There’s not much to add or to say about it other than it is a great wake up call for everyone.

Galatians 5:18-24 (The Message)

“My counsel is this: Live freely, animated and motivated by God’s Spirit. Then you won’t feed the compulsions of selfishness. For there is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness. These two ways of life are antithetical, so that you cannot live at times one way and at times another way according to how you feel on any given day. Why don’t you choose to be led by the Spirit and so escape the erratic compulsions of a law-dominated existence?

 It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on.

   This isn’t the first time I have warned you, you know. If you use your freedom this way, you will not inherit God’s kingdom.

 But what happens when we live God’s way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.

Legalism is helpless in bringing this about; it only gets in the way. Among those who belong to Christ, everything connected with getting our own way and mindlessly responding to what everyone else calls necessities is killed off for good—crucified”

Be blessed!

Worship Friday 5/6/11

On By Naty MatosIn Inspirational Thoughts1 Comment

I think one of the things Christians, especially new Christians struggle the most is condemnation. We live in the world of “forgive and not forget” and we have the tendency to look at God in the same light.

I have said many times that understanding God’s mercy was hard for me. How could he forgive the things I had done when his Word said that those things were against his will? Then I discovered Grace. That favor that God gives us that covers all our sins. That which brings to life the sacrifice of the cross.

Even after salvation we are not perfect, and there are times when we life in this fear of when will be the day when he will say enough, you’ve crossed the line of unforgiveness. But lucky for us that day will not arrive. As long as we repent we will be covered once again by the blood of the lamb, because Jesus died for ALL our sins. The ones we did and the ones to be done.

 1 Peter 1:18-20

For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.  He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake.

Let’s Praise God for that!

National Day of Prayer

On By Naty MatosIn Inspirational Thoughts3 Comments

 

Dear Heavenly Father,

All your children unite today to praise you and worship you. We thank you for your love, your mercy and your forgiveness.  Father we are grateful for your everyday provision. For everyday you give us breath, health, a roof over our heads we are thankful.

Today we ask you to protect our nation. We are grateful for those who everyday give their lives to defend our country, defend our right to peace. We pray protection over them and over their families whose lives are just as sacrificial as those in the field.

Lord forgive us for the inactivity of your body. For our refusal to move out of our comfort zones into the fields that you have called us to work. We ask you to refresh and revive our spirits. Give us your heart so that we see the pain in our brothers the way that you see it. Give us your mind so that we can purify our thoughts and work according to your purpose. Give us your wisdom so that we can make the right decision in our lives.

We ask you to protect our leaders, government and religious. These are the people called and chosen to guide our nation. They are in need of wisdom, they are in need of a compassionate heart, they are in need of a strong sense of justice that only you can provide.

We ask you for those who are suffering. Allow us to recognize their pain and give us the steps to follow to heal their wounds.

We ask you for the lost souls, that we are able to exemplify a life in Christ that they desire. Open their hearts so that they receive the invitation of the Holy Spirit. Give us boldness to preach your Word and life by it.

In closing, continue to teach us how to live our lives closer to you. That our lives become truly “ more of you and less of us” and that when the day comes we are able to celebrate the final victory with you in heaven.

In Jesus name we pray,

Amen!

Doing the right thing is not always fun

On By Naty MatosIn Inspirational Thoughts3 Comments

I recently encountered a situation were I was in a group and someone without provocation ( I promise) came and was very rude and disrespectful to me. My reaction:nothing! The people in the group where I was congratulated me for my reaction, stating that I had done the right thing, that the person’s attitude had been uncalled for and that I had taken the high road. So if I did the right thing, how did it not feel good? 

I said nothing, I did nothing. Inside there was a volcano of all the things I wanted to say and do, but nothing came out. There was a voice inside of me telling me how much of a wimp I was that I had not put this person in their place and tell them A, B, and C. How much I didn’t know how to react to situation like this. Sounds familiar? Yes, it’s called Satan! But at the time I was to angry to realize it.

I went home and I was pacing still reviewing scenarios in my head of what I should have said and done and all of the sudden I stopped. I remembered something I’ve told many people who can’t let go of a situation: Why are you carrying this person with you? Are you willing to have them move in with you?

Did you know that’s what happen when you hold on to a resentment? Yes, the person moves in with you and sleeps with you and eats with you and watches television right there by your side. I decided that I didn’t like this person enough to have them move in, plus I had made steak for dinner and it was very good and juicy and I only had one and didn’t want to share.

I moved on to why is this bothering me so much. I made reference to my own series in offenses. Why did this offended me and what was God trying to teach me?

The answer to the first one is pride. I was very uncomfortable by the fact that this was done in front of people and that I held restraint. Instead of being proud of myself for doing what I was supposed to do, my pride was hurt by the fact that I didn’t get even.

What was God trying to teach me through this situation? I meditated on this quite a bit. I think my lessons here were, definitely treat others as you like to be treated. I don’t think I’m rude to other people, but it always important to be watchful of how we do things. The other lesson is to keep your emotions in check and not allow them to lead you, which I didn’t and I did. The situation where we all were was a very tense one. This other person could have been reacting to the stress of our surroundings. In a way, I did the same thing by getting angry even though I didn’t show it.  Last but not least, that taking control of the flesh is not always fun, it’s painful but worth it.

Be blessed!

The Real Easter

On By Naty MatosIn Inspirational Thoughts2 Comments

Sunday night I watched for the second time “The Passion of Christ” I still can’t get over all the things Jesus went through for our salvation. Watching the movie I was looking at those mocking him and when he was almost without strength kept beating on him and I admit I thought He’s God, he has the choice to say “you know what I’m done with all of you” Get up, kill them all and go home; but he didn’t.

This year I think I’m even angry with the peeps. I think I read a tweet that said no chocolate bunny gave their life for you and I totally agree! Easter is the culmination of a whole process that God created to lead us to salvation. Jesus was born with a mission, to save humanity. Before Jesus came the way to atone (purge, clean) our sins was through sacrificing animals. Blood covenant is the highest one as blood is life. (Hebrews 9:11-15 MSG) But when the Messiah arrived, high priest of the superior things of this new covenant, he bypassed the old tent and its trappings in this created world and went straight into heaven’s “tent”—the true Holy Place—once and for all. He also bypassed the sacrifices consisting of goat and calf blood, instead using his own blood as the price to set us free once and for all. If that animal blood and the other rituals of purification were effective in cleaning up certain matters of our religion and behavior, think how much more the blood of Christ cleans up our whole lives, inside and out. Through the Spirit, Christ offered himself as an unblemished sacrifice, freeing us from all those dead-end efforts to make ourselves respectable, so that we can live all out for God.

While I’m watching the movie I get a message on my phone from my blogger friend Adrienne McLeod who had written a blog post about Jesus choice to give his life for us. You should read its titled: Palm Sunday, Holy Week and the Gift of New Life

We now enjoy the benefits of that sacrifice. I’m sure God doesn’t want us to live in condemnation, but I can’t stop to think how for granted we can take the depth of his sacrifice.

Blessings!